UK views towards breastfeeding in public: an analysis of the public's response to the Claridge’s incident

Background: The embarrassment UK mothers experience when breastfeeding in public has often been cited as a key factor in the decision of the mother to discontinue breastfeeding. There is convincing evidence that many UK residents are not comfortable with women breastfeeding in public; however, little is known about the underlying reasons for this discomfort. Objective: To assess views on breastfeeding in public in the United Kingdom and to understand why some UK residents object to this practice. Methods: The comment sections of news media websites and parenting forums were systematically identified and reviewed for statements made in response to an incident widely reported in the British press: a woman was asked to cover up while breastfeeding in public at Claridge’s, a London luxury hotel. Of these, 805 comments (73,108 words) met the inclusion criteria and were thematically analyzed. Results: The majority of commenters were supportive of “discreet” breastfeeding in public, but a significant portion felt that breastfeeding in public is always inappropriate. Sexualization of the breast was mainly evoked as something others may experience while viewing a breastfeeding mother, rather than to reflect the commenters' own views. Common justifications cited against breastfeeding in public were onlookers’ embarrassment (not knowing where to look) and disgust (at bodily fluids and/or functions). Conclusion: Campaigns portraying breastfeeding in public as normal and desirable with a focus on human milk as food rather than a bodily fluid may improve societal acceptance of breastfeeding in public. Keywords: Breastfeeding; public

Annotation management: a Group decision support system for nurses tasks

International audienceWe develop a 5-year empirical investigation that is giving us broad and deep insights to characterise activity management in the palliative ward of an oncology hospital, and offer effective support for group decision-making and collaborative activity of caregivers. Following this observation period, we propose a software prototype based upon annotations in which dealing with patients’ state and evolution is a complex organisational task. We based our conception of an annotation tool on the observations of the rich writing practices of medical professionals. We rely on the innovative strategy of intermediate management to introduce a new technology able to bridge heterogeneous, valuable data flows that addresses both management support and activity support in a single tool

Prediction of Ideas Number During a Brainstorming Session

International audienceIn this paper, we present an approach allowing the prediction of ideas number during a brainstorming session. This prediction is based on two dynamic models of brainstorming, the non-cognitive and the cognitive models proposed by Brown and Paulus (Small Group Res 27(1):91–114, 1996). These models describe for each participant, the evolution of ideas number over time, and are formalized by differential equations. Through solution functions of these models, we propose to calculate the number of ideas of each participant on any time intervals and thus in the future (called prediction). To be able to compute solution functions, it is necessary to determine the parameters of these models. In our approach, we use optimization model for model parameters calculation in which solution functions are approximated by numerical methods. We developed two generic optimization models, one based on Euler’s and the other on the fourth order Runge–Kutta’s numerical methods for the solving of differential equations, and we apply them to the non-cognitive and respectively to the cognitive models. Through some feasibility tests, we show the adequacy of the proposed approach to our prediction context

Scenarios, shared understanding, and group decision support to foster innovation networks

Collaborative innovation involves diverse individuals and organizations working together to develop new ideas, products, or services. Successful collaboration in networked innovation projects is challenging due to the need to cross the knowledge boundaries that exist between organizations, disciplines, and cognitive frames. We propose an approach to support knowledge mobilization and learning in networked innovation projects. Scenarios, stored in a shared repository, are used to capture and share information about application and solution domains. A collaborative process guides participants to reach a shared understanding and construct shared meaning. Stakeholders engage in a collaborative decision-making process of scenario ranking that includes identifying and negotiating comparison criteria. Although the approach is presented with examples in the domain of agriculture, where validation of the constituent elements took place, it is domain independent

A Volunteer Design Methodology of Data Warehouses

International audienceIn the context of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI), volunteers are not involved in the decisional processes. Moreover, VGI systems do not offer advanced historical analysis tools. Therefore, in this work, we propose to use Data Warehouse (DW) and OLAP systems to analyze VGI data, and we define a new DW design methodology that allows involving volunteers in the definition of analysis needs over VGI data. We validate it using a real biodiversity case study

Literature Can: A Sociological Reading of Ngozi Chuma-Udeh's The Presidential Handshake

[EN] Decision making for farms is a complex task. Farmers have to fix the price of their production but several parameters have to be taken into account: harvesting, seeds, ground, season etc. This task is even more difficult when a group of farmers must make the decision. Generally, optimization models support the farmers to find no dominated solutions, but the problem remains difficult if they have to agree on one solution. In order to support the farmers for this complex decision we combine two approaches. We firstly generate a set of no dominated solutions thanks to a centralized optimization model. Based on this set of solution we then used a Group Decision Support System called GRUS for choosing the best solution for the group of farmers. The combined approach allows us to determine the best solution for the group in a consensual way. This combination of approaches is very innovative for the Agriculture domain.The authors acknowledge the Project 691249, RUC-APS: Enhancing and implementing Knowledge based ICT solutions within high Risk and Uncertain Conditions for Agriculture Production Systems, funded by the EU under its funding scheme H2020-MSCA-RISE-2015. One of the authors acknowledges the partial support of the Programme of Formation of University Professors of the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sport (FPU15/03595).Zaraté, P.; Alemany Díaz, MDM.; Del Pino, M.; Esteso, A.; Camilleri, G. (2019). How to Support Group Decision Making in Horticulture: An Approach Based on the Combination of a Centralized Mathematical Model and a Group Decision Support System. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing. 348:83-94. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18819-1_7S839434

RUC-APS: Enhancing and implementing knowledge based ICT solutions within high Risk and Uncertain Conditions for Agriculture Production Systems

ISBN 978-3-319-96005-0International audienceCurrent global requirements are stressing agricultural systems to achieve enough resilience capabilities once abrupt changes in resource quality, quantity and availability occurs, especially during uncertain weather, pests and diseases, vola-tile market conditions and commodity prices conditions. Thus, managing risks and the uncertainties in information will lead farmers and value chain stakehold-ers to better react to these unexpected conditions. Hence, from the genetic design of the seed, through the planting and harvest processes, RUC-APS will enhance the knowledge from the full agricultural life-cycle based-decision making process to realise the key impacts at every stage farming decisions once facing high risk and uncertainty. Thus, RUC-APS will provide an integrated standard and custom-ised solutions to enhance collaborative agriculture value chains structures

Integrated Cooperative Framework for Project Resources Allocation

International audienceThe present paper presents a generic, flexible and robust framework for decision support in cooperative systems in charge with human resources allocation for various project tasks. Considering a knowledge database where people and projects are characterized through the task and competences binomial, the particularity of this frameworks consists in integrating inside the cooperative systems the benefits of complex user modeling and of personalization handled by the adaptive hypermedia systems, as well as the benefits of knowledge management with the support of semantic Web technologies

Choosing a Voting Procedure for the GDSS GRUS

In group decision-making, the use of Group Decision Support Systems is increasing and in some groups, a facilitator is required to improve communication among participants. The facilitator has several roles in this situation, which include helping decision makers (DMs) to decide which type of aggregation they would prefer in each decision context. Whenever DMs have different objectives regarding the same problem, they might decide a consensual decision is no longer possible. Therefore, other types of aggregation are required. Voting rules are strongly applied in this type of situation. However, the question that arises is: who should decide the voting method? In this article, a framework for choice of a voting procedure in a business decision context is used. It takes the facilitator’s preferences into account while it seeks to choose which voting procedure best suits the environment of the Group Decision Support System GRoUp Support (GRUS)

Speech Act Theory and Instructional Texts

International audienceIn this chapter, we shall consider, systematically, the types of speech act that are likely to arise in instructional or procedural texts and the forms they take. This will be preceded by a general presentation of Speech Act Theory. Thus, the chapter can be read autonomously and may possibly allow new applications to be formulated